해방기 시인 설정식과 비동일성의 애티튜드

Abstract

Seol Jeong-shik was a problematic figure as other researchers had pointed out. There are three aspects of his problems: the first one concerned his life. He was born in Joseon colonized by Japan, studied in the United States, and even worked for the US military government. At the same time, he belonged to a left-wing literary club and served the North Korean military as an interpretation officer during the Korean War. His life journey developed further along with people's enthusiasm for nation building after Liberation. An ideal nation based on the combination of Hellenism, Hebraism and Oriental world views was the expression of enthusiasm for a "beautiful appearance(nation)." The second one involved his attitude as an intellectual. His enthusiasm for a beautiful appearance led to his uncompromising attitude toward reality. His attitude of nonidentity toward the violence of US military government was especially manifested in such literary forms and long poems and epics and in his criticisms about the South Korean society. The final one involved the collapse of modernity and self-disruption. The impossibility of beautiful appearance eventually led to a call for Messiah, which became the end of his reason and motivation for his defection to North Korea. What he saw in North Korea was, however, not a beautiful appearance. There he found that a beautiful appearance that was not substantiated was nothing but a fantasy. His life oriented toward unreachable Utopia, however, reflects the attitudes of his contemporary intellectuals.